June: In San Francisco, Hanna and I stayed with Eric, the Californian Viking. Or, so atleast he claims himself. That was the first thing he told me when we first met. Him being a viking, due to his Scandinavian heritage. And sure, he does looks like one: tall and big and red haired. But loud in an extremely American way, and manly in a way that I rarely meet in my everyday life back home, among academics and Stockholm media workers and middle-class wannabe intellectuals and artists. So how on earth did we end up staying with this Californian viking for a week in San Francisco? That requires a little walk down memory lane.
Three years ago, while on my South America trip, I happened to go to Cusco together with Jonna. You go to Cusco to visit Machu Picchu, and that we did, a rainy Easter Saturday. After that, the plan was for Jonna to go on to Lima, where she would catch a flight to New York, while I was to go back to Natalia in La Paz. Well, things don’t always turn out the way you plan. Jonna got on the Lima bus safe and sound, no problem. But when I returned to the bus terminal a couple of hours later, I was told that no busses were leaving that night. The farmers of the Peruvian Andes were on strike and throwing stones at all the busses. The bus drivers refused to leave the terminal. Well, I could do nothing else but return to the hostel and wait for the stirke to end.
I ended up waiting for four days. I was twenty-one and an experienced traveller, but to be honest I had never been by myself in a strange country like this before. Adding to that the uncertainty of when I would be able to leave, it left me more or less in a panic.
To my enormous luck, I happened to stay at a big backpacker’s hostel in Cusco, called Loki, full of easy-going, social travellers from all around the world. And, for some reason, most of them seemed to find the bald Swedish girl intriguing (I had just shaved my head, and people couldn’t seem to get enough of discussing my new hairdo), and then when I returned from the bus terminal, stranded and alone, quite a few of them took pity on me and made sure I never had to be by myself unless I wanted to.
Well, obviously, Eric was one of those who took me under his wings. And being loud and American and extremely charismatic, he always had a group of people around him, and he was always the center of attention. Me, on the other hand, rarely said anything back then, not feeling entirely comfortable with the English and all the strangers and my general situation. But Eric made sure to include me anyway, and for those four days, I felt as if I was adopted by this loud American, his sister and his friend Luis. I blame the hair – or rather, lack of hair. (And sure enough, one night in San Francisco, Eric told me that what caught his attention back in Cusco was my radical haircut. Maybe I should keep my hair like that all the time.) Anyway, those four completely unplanned days in Cusco turned out to be my first encounter with the generosity of backpackers.
So, when I knew I was going to San Francisco, I naturally sent a message to Eric through Facebook, to see if he had some suggestions as to what we should do there. He answered with inviting us to stay on his couches for as long as we wanted. So there we go. That’s the story of how Hanna and I ended up staying on a couch in the Mission District in San Francisco with a red-headed Californian Viking.
The first thing he did, after dropping off our bags, was to take us to Dolores Park with a blanket and a case of San Francisco beer to enjoy the evening sun and watch all the dogs. After that, he took us to eat the best tacos in San Francisco (really, THE BEST), and then to have drinks at the bar where he works, a really fancy place called Beretta. And that was only the first night. It was obvious that Eric loved San Francisco and that he wanted to show all it’s best and coolest sides to us. Hanna and I had a great time, and it was definitely partly due to Eric’s excellent efforts as a host.
Seriously, sleeping on people’s couches is the best way to travel.
Hanna, entering Eric’s apartment building on 19th and Mission.
Katja Malmborg 